WHATEVER WUNGOS ARE

 

If celebrity something or other Ned Belleck was never certain what he was famous for, he was completely in the dark about what he was infamous for. He just woke up one day to find everyone online condemning him for being a 'wungo'. 'The signs were always there,' tweeted tweets. 'I always knew that about that guy,' opined people who Ned never knew and who never knew Ned.

Ned didn't know what a wungo was. He was not an old man or particularly out of touch, but everything moves so fast these days. Ned Googled the word. The only definition he found was in the urban dictionary. This definition wasn't very helpful though as it defined the word 'wungo' with other words Ned never heard of. The definition read - Wungo: Noun. A total sumper. Penchant for skellegy hents. “Oh man, Suzy's such a wungo, I bet she barbutts her fing.”

Ned decided not to worry about being a wungo. It'll all be forgotten about soon enough and everyone will move on to something else, he thought. But he thought wrong. The accusation made it into mainstream gossip columns and was mentioned on afternoon TV. Most shocking of all was when the police arrived at Ned's door to charge him for wungoisation. Ned contacted his lawyer, but even Ned's lawyer refused take a call from a wungo.

Ned called friends to ask what a wungo is and the few who picked up the phone answered him sharply. 'You know damn well what a wungo is, you Godamn wungo!' they said before hanging up and blocking his number. Ned didn't get any more public engagements. His agent dropped him as did the charities he worked with and boards and committees he sat on. His life was ruined.

Ned left his large, beachside property and moved into a small flat. He changed his name and appearance and took a job in a garden centre. He just got on with the rest of his life and kept his head down. Other than his employer and the customers at the garden centre, he spoke to no one. He never recovered his trust in humanity.

Ned never found out what the word 'wungo' meant and he spent the rest of his life wondering what wungos could be. 'Whatever they are, wungos must be pretty odious,' thought Ned to himself.

Ned often found himself keeping an eye out for wungos. He wondered if those around him were wungos and sometimes even suspected as much. He even found himself going online anonymously to accuse people of being wungos. I mean, maybe they were wungos. 'They sure seem like wungos,' said Ned to himself, 'whatever wungos are.'

THOSE MASKS

 

Well, those masks now. I'll wear them if that's what they say to do, but I've a line in the sand. I'll not wear them in the shop. Oh no. For me, you see, the shop is a place of freedom. Freedom of choice. It's where we get to practise our true autonomy. Think about it. It's where all the products are. Loads of products. And not just one type of each product either, but a choice of different types of the same product. That's freedom, you see. Freedom of choice. And what other kind of freedom is there but the freedom of choice? And where do you get the most to choose from? That's right, the shop!

A wide variety of choice. An expanse of choice. A plain. A wide open plain, like the Serengeti. Oh Jaysus, I loved it. You should have seen me, back in the day. Maskless. Frolicking and gambolling in the aisles. Like some creature off a David Attenborough thing. Up and down. Around the corner. It was beautiful. I was free. You should've seen me. You should have fucking seen me, man. Untamed abandon. I'm welling up thinking about it. There we were. All of us, like a load of flamingos or zebras or something, making our way to the checkout. Stocking up. Teeming out into the car park.

But it just feels like a mockery now, with the masks. It's like a collar. I feel like a chained beast. I'll put up with wearing the mask outdoors or at home or in the bath or wherever, but not in the shop. No. Not the shop. It's symbolic really. Donning the mask in the shop is a kind of surrender. You can't let them have us where they want us, in the true locus of freedom, the shop. And they're putting shit in the vax too. A micro-nano-thermite-chip. It's to keep an eye on us. Like tracked animals. If I want to be tracked like some animal, I'll get a Smartphone. And I do have a Smartphone. I bought it in the shop and you know what? I wasn't wearing a mask at the time.

Oh, and I've just dowloaded a cool new app. The Smartphone roars like a howler monkey if anyone with the virus comes within a fifteen metre radius of me.